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ON 






BY 

EDWIN RHJHAMPLIN. 




AUTHOR S EDITION. 
MAY 4, 1891. 




TS 



n 2 If- 



COPYRIGHT, 1891. 

BY 
E. R. CHAMPLIN. 



All Rights Reserved. 



E. A. STILLMAN, PRINTER, 
WESTERLY, R. I. 



Ever since my eyes have seen 

The rural hosts of forest green. 

And tall ichite birches sentinel the doors 

Of cities; when all day down pours 

The swn's straight heat, I haste to that green shade; 

But ever, day and night, my muse hath made 

Her path behveen white branches, slim and tall, 

And loves those slender birches best of all. 



I tlie Wliite-Eii'cli Im 




A SONG OF AN IMMORTAL. 

[John Boyle O'Reilly, born in County Meatli, Ireland, June 28th, 
1844; (iied in Hull, .Arassachiisetts. August 10th, 1890.] 



LL is silent, moveless now 
Where, a little while ago, 
Mystic currents used to flow — 

All know why, but who knows how? 
And where men could see the glow 
()f the soul that dwelt below, 

Now they see no face, no brow. 

All is changed since he has gone — 
He who made the summer day 

When his light of life went out 
Darker than the darkest way 
He had ever sung about ; 
And we say his life is done, 
Battle fought and garland won. 



But our inner sight prevails ; 

To our inner hearing conies 

Something dearer than we heard — 
Music of a subtler chord 

Than the living poet thrums ; 
All old strains our spirit hails 

Through celestial tympanums, 
And the flame of life we knew 

Burns a ceaseless, steady light. 

Leading dull eyes through the night 
To the spirit's sky of blue ; 
Like a spark from God it burns — 

Purer, clearer, day by day. 

As the youth-mists clear away. 
And our dark to daylight turns. 

He whom we shall see no more 

Face to face and hand to hand. 
Though cut off from this small land, 

Doth a universe explore. 

In the world of Memory, 

Where our best-beloved dwell, 
And there is no sad farewell, 

There is he whom none may see 

In the way that was so dear ; 



And his gifts of love and song 
Are more beautiful and strong 

Than they seemed when he was here. 

He was valorous, we knew ; 

He was Freedom's servitor : 
Now we know his only war 

Was for Freedom ; to her true, 

In the darkness of the day 

He his torch of truth upbore, 
And that light is borne before 

By new hands that feel its sway. 

He was tender as a flower : 

We could see it in his eyes, 
In his questions and replies ; 

Poor men saw it in his dower. 

Now that tenderness has grown : 
Deep and broad it was, a part 
Of the greatness of his heart, 

That before was little known. 

So in Memory he lives ; 

So, in spirit, unto some 

He a subtler soul doth come ; 

And he never takes, but gives. 

While his song the old doth drown. 
Let us neither seek nor grieve ; 



But that sight and sound believe 
Which he cherished as his own ; 
And if evermore his face 

Hid from sight of eyes shall be. 
Know that he at last is free, 
And has reached a heavenly place. 



w 



WHEN THE EVENT IS RIPE. 

HEN" the event is ripe, 
Matured in patient peace, 
Truth, swollen to a flood, 
Cuts riverlike her way, 
In peace or stained with blood. 

O Heart of Youth, grown rij^e 
Before the people's day ! 
Wave her white banner high ; 
Keep back the pain and crime, 
And, bl(jodless, slav the Lie ! 



THE END OF A TASK WELL DONE. 



T"? 



HE end of a task well done 

s the hour of jubilee : 
Another mnst be began. 

But the bondage to this is free, 
And the sense that the task with the heart is 
one, 
Is the joy it brings to thee. 

So hands and minds and hearts 

Unite to bring us bliss ; 
The highest of our arts 

Is never the higlit to miss ; 
And they who here perform their jjarts 

Will learn that heaven is this. 



T 



YEARNING. 

HE children cry for the ships. 
But the sails heed not their call ; 
They are set to the wind of the sky, 
And never a weakling's cry 
Can swerve them, one or all, 
Nor the song of a siren's lips. 



10 



O Love on life's ocean plain, 

That sailest the way of the sky ! 
Like a child I yearn and call ; 

Thou hearest each cry and all, 

But niakest nie no reply; 

Yet the loss of thy sail is gain : 

For thy flight it stirs me so, 
That I cry no more for aught 

But the breeze of the wind above, 
That unto the heaven doth move 
When hearts, like shi^^s, sail out 
Where the winds of heaven blow. 



B 



VALOR. 

RAVE is that soldier who has faced the foe 
In his own breast, and laid his foeman low. 

And glory-winner over all is he 

Whose magic makes his foes his friends to be. 



V 



11 



INSUFFICIENCY. 

RT thou that peerless majesty 

Wliom he should meet who opes to thee 
His heart's estate, and says so free : 
'' Come iu, My Friend ? " 

I, who vowed love, and bore me like a flame 
Steadfast as one that out of heaven came, 
Found me too poor, too weak to bear that name. 

All veiled I stand, shamed by this name of thine, 
Who should be open-eyed to be Thy Friend. 

Here let me stand, hid from thy noble eyes. 

Who, blind, sought love, nor dreamed of majesty; 

My part to wait, and lose and fall and rise 

Till 1 can answer back with veilless eyes 

And soul that love indeed beyond descries, 

Thy greatening call, that bids me mount toward 

Love, 
To meet the heart of love in thee, My Friend. 



1-2 



J 



AT THE THRESHOLD. 

EAVE thy heart wide open, ''Welcome" on the 
-J (h^or ; 

Into thy life let every sweet breath float. 
Now is thy conquest, — not another year. 
Not another day ; and here, right here. 
In this short fight wherein shall be thy part, — 
Even where thou art, — is Everlasting Life. 



MOONLIGHT IN DECEMBER. 

1) EF( )RE the ways get dry of rain, 
y Or frost has ceased to Avet the ground. 
Sudden the heavens are clear again. 
And in the sky the moon is round. 

Along the hight o'er which she sails 
The way is starred and silver-blue ; 

And from the air my heart inhales 

New breath, as though from heaven it drew 

How keen the change ! If, night on night. 
This sudden June might re-a])peai'. 

My Sfjirit should exert its nught, 
That droops i]i duller atnios])here. 



o 



A hundred thoughts that choke and die 
Would rise to stir the hearts of men 

If through the air and through the sky 
June would transform the earth again. 

But we must faintly breathe our love, 
And long for breatli to set it free, 

Our hearts oppressed by clouds above. 
And choking airs where'er we be. 

Yet, in the memory of sights 

Like this, sprung sudden on our eyes, 
A joy shall last, and in dark nights 

Shine out to make in hearts new skies. 



ONCE. 

NCE is a time that cometh o'er and o'er. 
And niaketh new time fragrant with its 
breath — 

A time that lives beyond this air of deatli, 
And shall increase its glory more and more 

In that new land where true love prospereth. 
Not half so sweet is all that went before; 

And this is all the heart remembereth. 



14 



A\ 



ANOTHER MAID. 

T HO loves thee, and loves not 
A maid thou canst not see, 
Hid in the heaven of thought, 
Cannot thy true love be. 

Oh, yield thyself to none 
That sees not one above 

Thyself; that loves alone 
Thyself, and loves not Love. 



THE ESSENTIAL. 

"^T OT half the wisdom that my mind can see, 
-^- ^ Not half the beauty tliat my heart can feel, 

Holds any book of all that sacred be. 
Nor half to me can other souls reveal. 

I must drink deeper than the sea of speech ; 

Discard the lore of them that letters teach ; 

Draw from tlie springs that fed the concjuerors. 

And feel in me the life that in God stirs. 



15 



EVANESCENCE. 

1) E ADING Gray's Elegy, to-day, one said : 
X) "Too great is he to lie among the dead; 
Yet he who wrote of graves is seen no more. 
And none his virtues writeth o'er and o'er." 

O who is great, of those alive or dead, 

When like a candle's flarne our breath is sped? 

Who but a day may linger at his ease. 

And ponder those who died, and write their elegies? 

Yet, over grave and breathing dust, unseen 
Stands Life, the Great, immortal and serene ; 
Life hath not died, though sons of Life be dead ; 
Life will not die, that hath all liviiig fed. 
And yet shall feed beyond the break of death. 
And fill anew with his undying breath. 

The sense that Christ and Shakespeare still should 

live 
Is one with that for all the world who strive 
To live unceasing ; and the promise made 
By Christ to conquer death is in all nature laid. 

No graveyard shall endure, or be 
To human hopes a ceaseless mockery : 
Dust shall not cover ever 



Kl 



The time-infracted frame, 
Or stay the strong endeavor 
Of men ot noble name : 
Life shall destroy all deadness, 

And set tlie grave-bound free, 
And mme shall sing death's sadness, 
In days that are to be. 



TO BROTHERS FAR AWAY. 

I) ROTHERS far away, whom never I am like to 
J see again, 

I would waft you grateful incense from the garden 

of my heart ; 
Ye have strengthened me in happiness, and merged 

away my pain, 
And I know no jubilant conquest, but in it ye have 
part. 

In the clear of early morning ye are with me as of 

old, 
And at night your presence soothes me like tlie fra- 

iii-aiH'c of a flower; 



17 



Ye may never read niy writing, hut must feel my 

spirit's fold. 
In a hundred liajjpy silences at morn and evening 

hour. 

Near or far, we in each other shall take houndless 

hearts'-delight. 
And in every word I utter in the measure that is 

dear, 
I shall feel the happy urging of your poet-spirits' 

might. 
And the far shall not be foreign, and the near shall 

be most near. 



COMING LOVERS. 



S many as the roses on the tree 
-X'JL When last I saw Maruna's fading face 



Shall the new lovers of the summer be; 

For Time still runs his Death-unhindered 
race ; 
And yet, Love outlives Time, as she to me 

Outlives the dav when last I saw her face. 



18 



O Great-heart Love, our everlasting guest ! 
Sun, Moon and Stars may drop from out 
iheir place ; 
A myriad lovers yearly sink to rest ; 
But Memory shall prosper by thy grace, 
And Life shall be renewed with all thy 
zest; 
For thou, O Love ! thou makest time and 
place. 



H 



THE LAST GIFT. 

ERE is a rose for thee. 
Sign of a hopeless quest. 
Token of broken trust : 
Wear it not on thy breast ; 
Trample it deep in the dust, 
As thou hast trampled me. 

Then, in the days to be, 

When roses are white, and rust 
Covers what thou hast confessed, 
And this thou remember est, 
Think of me if thou must, 
But think wliat thou didst to me. 



v^ 



I'.l 



MATURITY. 

HILE the leaves are waiting, browning on 
the tree, 
Ere the wind shall take them, and scatter 
on the ground, 
In my heart I ponder a greater mystery — 
How change, unseen and hurtless, goes on 
and makes no sound : 

For when the life-leaf withers and falls like 
these I see. 
No change is there but this unseen that 
makes new life abound ; 
So that when spring arises, beneath her green 
shall be 
A finer scent and flavor to tell the heart is 
sound. 



THE ENEMY. 

. HEN Death makes seeming conquest of thy 
''^ friends, 



w 



I say to thee, go on thy way unharmed : 

No bolt of Death can more than flash on thee 

The lightning of its fury; it cannot 



20 



Destroy thee, cannot break thy strength, nor e'en 
Appall thee as it doth aj^jjall the world ; 
It can but chaiXge thy semblance, bate thy breath ; 
For thou art strong with Life, and Life l)reaks 

down 
The brittle, ghastly l)attlements of Death. 



T 



IN GOD'S SHELTER. 

HY shelter in the storm was dear 

When, hurt by stones the careless threw, 

I drew away and found Thee near. 
Who knew the bitterness I knew. 

More dear each year Thy shelter grows 

As, storm grown hurtless, heart grown strong, 

I live in Thy divine repose. 

And by love's conquest conquer wrong. 

Up through Life's years to airs sublime 
I mount, and if through sleet or sun, 

I love life more, and seek more time. 
Since Thou and I, O God, are one. 



n 



TO R. W. G. 

T 



rf^O Richard Watson Gilder, 

Of happy rhyme the biiikler, 



On his marriage : 
He was wedded once to Verse, 
And he never sought divorce ; 
But he sets his heart to rhyme 
With a songless maid's this time, 
And I fling my rice of song 
In a slipper ten lines long, 

To his carriage. 



w 



UNUTTERED. 

f HAT is so near, yet cannot be read. 
As the thought in a maiden's mindV 
The key to her lips I could find — 

And the words were true that she said; 
But the thought that remained behind. 
That I knew was true and kind, 

That made her as still as the dead, 
Onlv a kiss defined. 



90 



I 



DEDICATION OF AN ALBUM. 

ARGE Heart, whose name is widt 
I In hundred other hearts indelibly, 
Here is my name, and o'er and under it 

I write unseen the thought I keejj for thee ; 
Thine to bear on till in old-age you sit, 

And, as I think of you, you think of me. 



1 



GOD AND MAN. 

)EAUTY revolving all the year; 

^ The silent might of stream and stone; 
Majestic grandeur like a throne 
Where mountains unseen summits rear ; 
An endless train of loving lives ; 
A boundless scope of varying plan 
Are saying : Great are God and man, — 
The One who speaks, the one who strives. 

For beauty were not, were no eyes 
To see ; the might of stone and stream 
Were vain : there were no mastering dream 
If man saw not the mountains rise; 



21] 



No pulse responsive thrilled to God, 
And half at fault were all his plan, 
( For half of God indeed is man ) 
Did man not glorify the sod. 



LOVE IN MEMORY. 

VLL the way I went that day to the place where 
my Love waited 
Was charmed with strange new music that 
thrilled my fleeting feet ; 
The air was thick with beauties, and each 
bloom, each bird was mated — 
I could hear the faintest raptures flooding 
noises of the street. 



As a flower doth leave its fragrance in the 
space it once did visit ; 
As a sound of lofty music keeps its soul 
where once 'twas heard — 
So she fills that place of meeting with a mem- 
ory exquisite, 
That is sweet of kiss and bosom-swell and 
one low -breathed word. 



24 



THE GREETING. 

[Read by Robert Adams, at a rece])tion given to Chief Robert A. 
Me Whirr, on his return to Fall River, Marss., from Scotland, by 
Clan McWhirr, in the Fall of 1890.] 




E have come to welcome you home 

Over the wide sea-foam, 
Robert, Chief of the Clan ; 
And "Welcome!" says every man. 

And how has it gone wi' ye 
Over the foaming sea ? 
We have long waited ye come 
Back to your Yankee home, 

And wondered, as over the heath 
Ye jjattered wi' fainting breath. 
And over the lochs sae grand 
Ye sailed, in yer ain home land. 

If ye might come back at a' 

To bring us yersel' and a' 

The beautiful things that your een 

In that Ian' o' our hearts ha' seen. 

We can feel the same joy that ye felt 
As adoun by the hearth ye knelt 
Where the auld and the young once were 
111 the days that can bo no more; 



25 



We can sing the same song ye sang 
In yer tliocht as in sport ye sprang 
In tlie games that ye used to play 
In the clays that are far away. 

And now, wi' yonr heart once more 
On the sands of the Yankee shore, 
We sing and we gie ye the sign 
O' the brothers of Anld Lang Syne. 

Joy, Robbie, to be once more 
On the dear New England shore, 
And to feel the warm blood stir 
In the hands of the Clan Mc Whirr ! 



We come, young hearts and old. 
Young men that their sweethearts fold, 
Old men that have not outgrown 
The love that their youth has known, — 

We come to welcome you home : 
With a three-times-three we come, 
Robert, the Chief of the Clan ; 
And "Welcome!" says every man. 



RECOGNITION. 

f I ^HOU canst not go so far but tlion wilt find 
-^ Some feature of thyself in human kind ; 
Nor shut thyself so close but some will see 
Trace of themselves, or glad or sad, in thee. 

Since, then, thou art with all mankind at one, 
And all mankind are likewise one with thee, 

O Friend ! the l^arrier of thy pride take down, 
And happiness shall come to thee and me. 




LOSS. 

HEN I behold a figure, white and strong. 
By Death transfigured from a weak estate, 

I grieve not that the slayer did me wrong. 
For he, despite of life, hath made him great 

Who passed away ; and Life, that doth prolong 
Death's sudden glory, still doth keep my 
mate. 



o 



RESOURCE. 

NE is tlie stream I drink from niglit and day ; 
In weakness and in strength, in joy and pain : 
Tlie everlasting ocean of God's Love. 

Whence cometh any power of happiness? 
Whence, means to rise from yesterday's defeat':' 

() ever, ever flooded with that tide, 
My sonl shall rise, my heart rejoice and sing. 
And high or low, weak, strong, in bliss or pain. 
Loved or nnloved, meaneth not anything. 



s 



SLEEP. 

^ LEEP is the guest that all bid come again. 
^^ O soother of my fluttering frame. 

And strengthener of my whole estate. 
When I have played Life's little game. 

Still let me on thee wait : 
Be with me all my days, and then remain 
When Death appears, to ease me of his pain. 



2S 



THE GIFT. 

]7^ OR those wJio have hoj^e, 
And those who have none ; 
Whom the worhl dotli a]jprove, 

Whom it flingeth a stone ; 
For weaklings who grope 

In a dark of their own, 
( )r for strong and self-centered 

Who bow bnt to One ; 
For the crowd many-minded, 

Good, guilty and all, 
Here's Love — and Love scorns not 

If men rise or fall. 



T 



SIGHT. 

^O SEE the glory of the day. 
E'en when it fades away, 
With the same eyes 
Wherewith we saw it rise, 
Is to behold, from our low hight. 
Constant, the greatness of the Infinite. 

To keep, in all the dull, chirk hours, 
The beauty of the flowers. 



29 



So tliat tlie last dead leaf 
Shall give the heart no grief,— 
All fadeless, dreamful, dear, — 
Is to bear with us everywhere God's beau- 
ty all the year. 



I 



A LOVE SONG. 

T WAS once a sweet time, I hear all things say 
As they fade away : — 
Birds that wing like fleet time, roses on the 

spray— 
Everything I meet, chime in this doleful lay. 
Gliding to decay. 

But to me 'tis meet time, then my muse doth 
say; 
Come and go, or stay. 
Every breath's a sweet time, every motion gay ; 
Of your death in sleet time, or your bright 
array, 
I make roundelay ; 



;}() 



And if (others beat time when my rhymes I say, 

I heed not, but they ; 
For in me is sweet time while the seasons stay, 
And I can repeat time when they go away : 

So I sing to-day : 

They knew not a sweet time who in sorrow say 

As they fade away, 
It w^as once a sweet time, — else the time would 

stay: 
Love doth make a sweet time of a mortal day, 

And it lasts for aye. 



RESOLVE. 

IF IT should l)e too late to mend the way 
My feet have made in life's all-conscious clay, 
Where every footjjrint lasts till Judgment Day, 
'Tis not too early to make prints anew, 
F(jr life flows fresh o'er life, and hides from view. 
As waters hide the footmarks on the shore. 
The sins that can be blotted nevermore. 

New hope each day arises with the sun — 

A way outspread o'er which no feet have run — 



:n 



And night lias made me strong, if lost or won 
Tlie day gone Idv : and thrilled with love of all 
Dear hearts that sought my heart straight through 

its wall — 
Great hearts that like a perfume entered through 
The gateway of my life before I knew — 
I take new steps, and thrill my followers' feet, 
Joy-laden air my feast of heavenly meat. 
And sight on every side blooms rare and SAveet : 
This day, whatever other days have been, — 
How sad the weight of ignorance and sin — 
God's face shall light the way my feet go in. 



I 



VICTORY. 

X THE stillness of my chamber 

I heard the call to arms. 
And lone and single-handed 

Went forth to war's alarms. 
Xow in my silent chamber 

Peace is my royal guest, 
And I ask my heart the question. 

Can I meet his loftv test? 



'A-) 



Oh, easy were strife in battle, 

And soon a thousand slain; 
But Avho shall wear a garland 

If Selfishness remain V 
Peace cannot crown me victor 

For the quenching of Hate's flame 
If I march not in the silent ranks 

That hear Love's liolv name. 



1 



A BEAUTY. 

WONDER if she knows 
How beautiful she is? 

No mirror can disclose ; 

My heart but dimly shows 
The beauty that she is. 

But well I know she knows 

H(nv beautiful Lov^e is; 
For like a bending rcjse 
Her heart she doth disclose, 
Willi all TjOvc's sweetnessos. 



X] 



Slie knows enough who knows 

How beautiful Love is : 
Blind to all other shows 
Is she ; her beauty grows 
The beauty that Love is. 



A 



MUSIC IN THE NIGHT. 

SOUND of music waking one from sleeyj, 
X\. Oh, how it sets the tender chords a-playing 1 
And as it dies upon the airy deep, 

It seems as if the heart in dreams were straying. 

O ecstasy that I have known long since, 

And long to know again, awake or sleeping. 

Thou lingerest without my gate, the prince 
Of mystic charmers in my Father's keeping. 




u 



THE WEALTH OF SILENCE. 

'^ HAT holds the silence that I have not heard? 
Withdrawing from the whispers of sweet 
maids, 
From sounds of winds among the shining blades, 
And sympathetic twitters of a bird ; 
From strains of happy music from the throats 
Of children through the green woods wandering; 
From floating far-off melody from boats 
Which bear a baiid of buglers pleasuring ; 
From cries, as frosty-crystal as the snow. 
Of children in their low- set chariots 
As, thrilling with the zest cold sports impart, 
O'er ice and down long, rough-ribbed hills they go : 
Still is the Night, and these sounds come no more : 
What if no more I hear them, nor the roar 
Of hundred grating noises that I hear. 
Lost in the well of silent atmosphere? 
Is the deep silence full of happiness? 
Death makes no answer, for Death's soul is dumb : 
But I can feel in Life, past Death, and far 
Beyond the farthest vision of a star. 
That silence grows, as sound and noise grow less. 
The life of all that is and is to come. 



35 



I 



A NIGHT-SONG. 

F I might toss a rose 
Where she is resting, 

And break her soft repose, 
My love attesting, 

O how this heart would rest. 
And hers go dreaming 

There in her sacred nest 

With love's sweets teeming ! 

If from her slnmber she 
But rose and met me, 

Set from my longing free, 
I should not fret me. 

If I might toss a rose 
Where she is resting. 

And break her soft repose. 
My love attesting ; — 

But, till the night goes past, 

I'll hide my sorrow : 
My heart must keep its fast 

For feast to-morrow. 



:3(; 




THE MUSIC OF MY LOVE. 

THE^ the cliimer strikes the bells, 
All the harmony that stirs 
To his touch, and soft recurs. 
It is drowned in the swells 
Of the music in my heart 
As I touch my hand to hers, 
And the chimes immortal start. 



1 



THE LOSS OF A DAY. 



^ EHOLD the Day new-born, 



^ Says Night, that steals away ; 
And hold him while ye may : 
A whole world is forlorn 
For loss of Yesterday. 



CAMILLE. 



AA 



HAT was lier dying strain, O sweet ro- 
mancer? 

Sang she of beauty or a passing fashion ? 
My heart may well anticipate your answer : 

She breathed the music of eternal passion ! 




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